MP Michael Ma, who left the Conservatives to join the Liberals, has apologized after appearing to cast doubt on reports of human rights abuses in China. Ma said he regretted making a mistake with his remarks, while pointing out that he had referred to the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen, and not Xinjiang, where the Communist government has been accused...
Winner will take over a party that only elected 7 MPs — then lost 1 to Liberals. The NDP will have a new leader by Sunday afternoon — and whoever comes out of the party's convention in Winnipeg with the top job will be tasked with bringing the party back from a historic low. Five candidates — MP Heather McPherson...
Secretary of State Marco Rubio is in France meeting his Group of Seven foreign minister counterparts Friday after President Donald Trump attacked NATO countries over a reluctance or refusal to take part in the Iran war, a conflict that some of America's closest allies have met with deep skepticism. Rubio will have a hard time trying to sell the other...
Contrary to popular belief, the choice made by voters in the Montreal-area riding of Terrebonne in the April 13 byelection will have major implications on moving bills forward in the House of Commons. The rules of procedure in the Commons mean that, in this current Parliament, the magic number allowing a government to have a free hand is not 17...
Canada might join efforts to ensure ships can move freely through the Strait of Hormuz if there is a ceasefire in the Persian Gulf, Prime Minister Mark Carney said on Thursday. "There are conversations with our NATO partners — some NATO partners — concerning what we can do with a ceasefire, at the moment there is a ceasefire, in order...
A new national survey from Liaison Strategies reveals a shifting landscape in the NDP leadership race, with Avi Lewis and Heather McPherson both making notable gains in favorability over the past year. The survey, which tracked the favorability of potential and declared candidates, highlights a significant increase in profile for Avi Lewis. Lewis has seen his favorability nearly double, rising...
Voting is open in the federal NDP leadership race, with five candidates hoping to lead the party into an uncertain future. The leader will be announced at the convention in Winnipeg on Sunday, and the first task after winning will evidently be introducing themselves to many would-be voters. New data from the non-profit Angus Reid Institute examines the views of...
New Democrats from across the country are gathering in Winnipeg for the party's convention, where a new federal party leader will be chosen by the end of the weekend. After a six-month leadership race, voting closes on Saturday and the new leader will be announced Sunday morning. The candidates are union leader Rob Ashton, social worker Tanille Johnston, filmmaker Avi...
An MP who left the Conservatives to join the Liberals is casting doubt on reports of human rights abuses in China's Xinjiang region. MP Michael Ma asked an expert during a parliamentary committee hearing Thursday whether she'd seen forced labour with her own eyes. "Have you witnessed forced labour in Xinjiang? Have you witnessed forced labour? Just a short answer...
I have an urgent request for Prime Minister Mark Carney: please come to Vaughan, Ont., to meet with our Jewish community. As Vaughan’s mayor, I want you to know that Jews here feel angry, scared, defiant, tired, shocked and beleaguered. Who can blame them? I’ve lived my entire life in this country, but I have never before witnessed the shocking...
Here is an evergreen news story if there ever was one: the Prime Minister’s official residence has problems. Yes, we are talking about that again – the PM’s digs. Except this time we aren’t talking about 24 Sussex. We’re talking about the cottage that the Prime Minister of Canada had to move into on the grounds of the Governor-General’s residence...
Sunday's coronation won't revive a dead federal party, but his extremist agenda will absolutely tank their provincial success stories. Pundits love to overcomplicate politics, but the math for this Sunday’s NDP leadership vote is painfully simple. For Avi Lewis to be denied a first-ballot victory, the other four candidates on the ballot need to somehow scrape together 50% plus one...
Impressive ambition. A needed boost for Canadian sovereignty. Some hope for industrial transition. But when you get down to the math, there is only half the equation. The figures are big. After touring a Royal Canadian Navy ship on Thursday, and boasting that Canada has finally met the NATO target for defence spending, Prime Minister Mark Carney made a point...
In a way, the Office of the Parliamentary Budget Officer came full circle this week. In February 2013, as the term of the first parliamentary budget officer neared an end, the Official Opposition put a motion before the House of Commons calling for the independence of the office to be reinforced and for the term of Kevin Page to be...
The Supreme Court spent most of this week hearing oral arguments in what is widely known as the Bill 21 case, after the infamous Quebec law banning the wearing of religious symbols in much of the public sector – effectively a hiring bar on observant members of certain religious minorities. Only it isn’t really Bill 21 that is at issue...
I once predicted semi-seriously in a long-ago column that climate change and calm — or a combination of temperature and temperament — would make Canada a 21st-century superpower. Donald Trump may have achieved it in half the time. The term “New World Order” went viral not long after the dawn of 2026, when Prime Minister Mark Carney used it to...
MY EXCELLENT FRIEND and former colleague Steve Walt of the Harvard Kennedy School calls them the predatory hegemons. America, China, and Russia are prowling the world, turning a rule-ordered playing field into a jungle in which the rule of the strongest prevails. The middling powers Prime Minister Mark Carney talked about at Davos are scrambling to escape the jungle. Carney’s...
For years, the dismal state of 24 Sussex Drive has been a recurring punchline, a symbol of political paralysis, and a quiet national embarrassment. I spent years inside the machinery of government, close enough to watch good policy die, not from bad ideas, but from political timidness. The file on 24 Sussex is one I know well. It remains, after...
Those who aspire to lead democratic nations are tested from the moment they declare their candidacy. Does he speak well? Is she good on her feet? How will he handle the economy? Will she be trusted in a crisis? Each candidate is sliced and smeared and pressed onto a slide, so that the electorate can inspect every personal and professional...
The Carney government needs to get its story straight on foreign interference and transnational repression — especially as it relates to India. After this government insisted that the Indian government was cooperating with the Canadian investigation into the murder of Hardeep Singh Nijjar and other crimes like extortion and arson, the Indian government said there was never anything to investigate...
You’d never know it, given the scarcity of attention accorded the NDP leadership race, but there is so much riding on it. There’s the question of whether the party can survive, whether the sagging left in Canada can keep it alive. There is, ipso facto, the question of whether Canada is reduced to an American-styled two-party system, with less choice...
Just as turkeys don’t vote for Christmas, it would be unreasonable to expect Canada’s chicken farmers to elect for more open trade with the world’s major poultry exporter. The chicken sector is, after all, one of this country’s supply-managed industries. It’s protected from most foreign competition, ostensibly in the name of domestic food security but also, whisper it, to ensure...
There are days when Canada just makes me want to crawl under the bed and hide. Days when I wonder if this country really is redeemable, despite its endless natural resources, generally level-headed and tolerant population, geographic insulation from global strife and hundreds of years of good luck. Tuesday was one of those days. Wednesday was another. I’m not expecting...
Several years ago, a cabinet minister seated next to me at an Ottawa dinner, leaned in. The chatter around the table was the NDP’s particularly biting criticism of the Trudeau government that day. “I don’t mind,” the minister whispered in my ear. “They keep us honest.” This minister believed pressure from the NDP kept the Grits true to their values...
Except for the ill-conceived public campaign to get well-known commentator Don Cherry installed as a member of the Order of Canada, the Conservatives look like they have carved out a few positive weeks for themselves. It’s better than the abysmal fall and early winter that left many Conservative supporters in a foul mood, and Leader Pierre Poilievre constantly having to...
Avi Lewis likes neon-sign politics. That was the point of the Leap Manifesto he co-authored more than a decade ago in a bid to prod the NDP to the left. He didn’t propose steps. He wanted a leap. “We’re challenging decades of political clichés. So we want to spend like drunken sailors,” he said then, in an interview at the...
Alberta Premier Danielle Smith faces heat Tuesday from some folks who likely voted for her and the UCP in the last provincial election. Heat from those who may support Smith and like a lot of what she’s doing but think the deal she inked with Prime Minister Mark Carney to get a pipeline to the west coast is not worth...
Every March, millions of fans set aside their better judgment and give themselves over to the chaos of a basketball tournament aptly called March Madness. Its charm is simple. Anything can happen. Underdogs from small colleges sometimes topple the giants. We watch, we wince, we marvel. This year, the madness has spilled beyond the court into far more dangerous territory...
The scale of growth of Canada’s assisted-dying industry has become an easy talking point for skeptics both in Canada and abroad. The New York Post, in typical tabloid fashion, announced that Canada will “soon cross the sickly six-figure threshold” of 100,000 deaths by medical assistance in dying (MAID), noting the figure will surpass the number of Canadian deaths during the...
Start with the crisis everyone agrees on. A generation of young Canadians has been priced out of home ownership. Rents are consuming incomes. The dream of a mortgage, a backyard, a place to call one’s own has become, for millions, exactly that — a dream. Any serious federal leader must make housing affordability a defining mission. Which makes what I’m...
If you lay on the beach on the north coast of the Dominican Republic, warming your northern skin and admiring the play of the sun on the waves, you can sip pina coladas made from beautiful local pineapple juice, and when you want a snack, you can pay a few pesos for a little bag of brown Spanish peanuts from...
There are many ways that governments can be defeated, from self-inflicted scandals and political corruption to their failure to respond to broader global trends and events. But few things will bring a government to its knees faster than unchecked food price inflation. The surge of post-COVID inflation and the impact it had on grocery bills transformed the politics in most...
Despite some blemishes on Mark Carney’s otherwise immaculate image, his personal approval ratings are off the charts. If an election were held tomorrow, the Liberals would win north of 200 seats. Here's why.
Marjorie Harris and Michael Hughes are deadlocked, with net favourability scores of +1. The thing is, they are made up names for an experiment. Ever since I started working in public opinion research (back in the early 1980’s) I was keen to know about the sources of bias that can creep into research unless care is taken in survey design.
Ontario is delaying a path to balance once more, as one of several shock absorbers meant to ease the province down a potentially bumpy economic road ahead, though it is currently faring better than previously feared in the face of U.S. tariffs. Finance Minister Peter Bethlenfalvy is for the third year in a row delaying a surplus, now projecting black...
For the first time since the end of the Cold War, Canada is spending roughly two per cent of its GDP on national defence — a key NATO alliance benchmark Ottawa previously failed to meet. NATO's annual report, released Thursday, contains estimates stating Prime Minister Mark Carney’s government met the key spending benchmark for 2025 by shelling out just over...
British Columbia Conservative MLA Hon Chan has been charged with assault, assault by choking and uttering threats, prompting his removal from the party caucus. The BC Prosecution Service says the Richmond Centre legislator was charged under the name Hon-Sang Chan after a special prosecutor was appointed to look into the case last June.
The prime minister said there should be a public apology for a spying operation targeting hundreds of Indigenous people that had the support of the federal government. "Yes, there should be an apology," Mark Carney said during a press conference in Halifax on Thursday. "It’s a reprehensible practice. Never should’ve happened." Carney was responding to reporting from CBC Indigenous, which...
The Liberal government is proposing new legislation to strengthen electoral integrity by banning digital deepfakes of candidates, cracking down on unduly long ballots and protecting nomination and leadership contests. The government says the Strong and Free Elections Act responds to recommendations from an inquiry into foreign interference and from others, including the chief electoral officer. The new bill would also...
The public servant leading the transition away from the federal government's error-prone Phoenix pay system says he's stepping down because the team no longer needs him. Alex Benay, associate deputy minister at Public Services and Procurement Canada, says in a LinkedIn post the backlog of Phoenix cases older than a year and the overall queue of complaints are at their...
Indigenous Services Minister Mandy Gull-Masty announced on Thursday a $738.9-million funding package for First Nations health care, governance and emergency management. She is earmarking $55.6 million to build up community preparedness and emergency management co-ordination. The funds are not directly related to fire management but could help with operations such as wildfire support. Gull-Masty's department is under heavy pressure from...
Indigenous Services Canada and other departments are failing to uphold their own Indigenous procurement strategy and may be allowing contractors to use shell companies to access contracts reserved for Indigenous businesses, says the federal procurement ombudsman. In a scathing new report released Thursday, Alexander Jeglic says Indigenous Services Canada failed to provide timely answers to procurement officers' questions in some...
The head of Air Canada apologized on Thursday for delivering an English-only video response to Sunday’s collision between one of the airline’s planes and a fire truck at LaGuardia Airport in New York City that left two pilots dead. “Despite many lessons over several years, unfortunately, I am still unable to express myself adequately in French,” Michael Rousseau said in...
After more than a decade of plodding progress, Canada has officially hit the NATO spending target of two per cent of GDP set during the Wales Summit of 2014. According to data in the NATO Secretary-General’s annual report released this morning, Canada spent more than $60 billion on defence in 2025 – an amount that adds up to two per...
An air bubble of about half a billion barrels of oil is set to wreak havoc on global economies. For every day the war in the Middle East drags on, the crisis in energy markets deepens. The price of everything from gas and oil to jet fuel and plastics is rising sharply. That crisis is set to get dramatically worse...
Ontario's finance minister will unveil the province's budget today, which is not expected to have any tax increases. Peter Bethlenfalvy has signalled Ontarians must plan for tougher times ahead as U.S. President Donald Trump's trade war continues and global conflicts push strong headwinds against Ontario's economy. Ontario's deficit earlier this year stood at $13.4 billion and its overall debt as...
Oil pipeline system connecting Alberta to West Coast was previously expected to fill up by 2027 or 2028 The Trans Mountain oil pipeline system is expected to operate at full capacity in April and into May as a result of energy disruptions caused by the war in the Middle East. The pair of pipelines transport oil from Edmonton to a...
Conservatives are calling for resignation of current minister and 2 predecessors. Justice Minister Sean Fraser, who was in charge of immigration during some of the years Auditor General Karen Hogan found instances of fraud in Canada's international student program, said with hindsight, he would have acted sooner to fundamentally change it. The Opposition Conservatives have been calling for his resignation...
Former Alberta premier Jason Kenney is taking up the Canadian cause as he's set to participate in two debates about separatism against a lawyer pushing for the province to go its own way. The first debate will take place in Edmonton in May at a member's only conference put on by Civitas Canada, a conservative non-profit organization.
The MP representing Tumbler Ridge, B.C., has described how a 12-year-old girl heroically tried to save two classmates shot in the mass killing in the community last month. Bob Zimmer told Tuesday's National Prayer Breakfast in Ottawa that the girl, named Christina, had dragged both Abel Mwansa Jr. and Maya Gebala under a table after both of the 12-year-olds were...
A House of Commons committee is calling on the government to make it harder for protest groups to sign up dozens of candidates in a single riding, after Elections Canada announced Wednesday that voters in an upcoming byelection in Quebec will use a write-in ballot because of the high number of candidates.
Ahead of the Liberal Party’s national convention next month, members of its youth wing are urging candidates for national chair of their body to remain independent from government, warning against treating the role as a stepping stone to high-profile Hill jobs. Speaking with The Hill Times on a not-for-attribution basis, supporters of the third-party “Young Liberals for Change” pledge say...
Prime Minister Mark Carney is criticizing Air Canada CEO Michael Rousseau for his English-only message of condolences to the families of the pilots who died in a plane crash on Sunday at New York’s LaGuardia Airport. “We live in a bilingual country, and companies like Air Canada particularly have a responsibility to always communicate in both official languages regardless of...
Alberta Liberal MP Corey Hogan says the Keystone XL pipeline is being used as leverage in the federal government’s ongoing trade talks with the U.S. “I can tell you that Keystone XL and the energy security it would provide the United States has always been one of the cards that Canada has in our deck as we start thinking about...
Nearly half of those who voted for the federal NDP at least once over the past four elections don't recognize the names of the current leadership candidates, a new poll suggests. The Angus Reid Institute surveyed 1,100 Canadians who voted for the NDP at least once between 2015 and 2025 and found that 44 per cent of respondents said they...
The Quebec Conservatives now have an elected member in the national assembly after a former cabinet minister with the Coalition Avenir Quebec crossed the floor to join the party. Maite Blanchette Vezina, who had quit the CAQ to sit as an Independent in September, joined the Conservatives on Tuesday and announced she will run for the party in the October...
The Nova Scotia legislature has been closed to the public after singing protesters stalled a budget vote Tuesday night. Saf Haq says she and about 40 others broke into song just before midnight when the legislature moved to vote on a budget-related bill that would result in a series of cuts to government programs. Haq says that after about 1...
Ontario is planning to temporarily expand HST rebates on the purchase of new homes, in a bid to boost a struggling home construction sector. The government previously introduced rebates for first-time homebuyers on new homes valued up to $1.5 million, with homes valued at $1 million or less qualifying for the maximum amount of $130,000 when combined with a federal rebate.
The union representing staff at Global Affairs Canada says the foreign service is laying off dozens of its most skilled diplomats, while asking other envoys moving across continents to wait months for their personal items. The cuts come as Global Affairs Canada sets out its plans to meet budgetary belt-tightening requirements laid out by Prime Minister Mark Carney last year...
Members of Parliament last year went on the fewest sponsored international trips in the last 15 years, excluding the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. According to the ethics commissioner's annual report on sponsored travel tabled in the House of Commons on Tuesday, only 15 MPs accepted international travel paid for by an organization or interest group in 2025, totalling $78,721...
Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew is accusing U.S. President Donald Trump of fuelling the war in Iran to distract from the millions of documents related to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, also referred to as the “Epstein files,” saying the conflict is driving up gas prices for Canadians. In an interview with CTV’s Power Play with Vassy Kapelos on Tuesday, Kinew...
As soon as he stepped inside the café, Charles Milliard began turning heads. Among those enjoying their coffee who spotted the new Quebec Liberal Party leader as he made his way through Café Hubert Saint-Jean, located in the province’s Eastern Townships, was Normand Duval.
Legislation on the issue came about after fallout from a Supreme Court of Canada decision last October
Oil and gas execs encouraged by policy changes, still want to see action to support energy sector expansion. In Texas this week for a global energy conference, the federal natural resources minister is proclaiming "Canada is back" and ready to bolster its energy sector and grow exports. The message by Tim Hodgson comes at a time when the world is...
GRAPEVINE, Texas (AP) -- A generational divide over the Iran war surfaced Thursday between older attendees and their political heirs at this year's Conservative Political Action Conference, as the group's leaders pleaded for unity in a challenging midterm election year for Republicans.
ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) -- Minnesota will be the flagship of the "No Kings" protest movement Saturday when Bruce Springsteen performs "Streets of Minneapolis" in a state where emotions are still raw over President Donald Trump's immigration crackdown and the deaths of two residents shot by federal officers.
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Facing a convulsing stock market, President Donald Trump on Thursday moved to buy himself more time and hold off, once again, on carrying out a threat to obliterate Iran's energy plants over the Islamic Republic's effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz.
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The U.S. Treasury Department plans to put President Donald Trump's signature on all new U.S. paper currency, the agency announced on Thursday.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio is in France meeting his Group of Seven foreign minister counterparts Friday after President Donald Trump attacked NATO countries over a reluctance or refusal to take part in the Iran war, a conflict that some of America's closest allies have met with deep skepticism. Rubio will have a hard time trying to sell the other...
Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew is accusing U.S. President Donald Trump of fuelling the war in Iran to distract from the millions of documents related to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, also referred to as the “Epstein files,” saying the conflict is driving up gas prices for Canadians. In an interview with CTV’s Power Play with Vassy Kapelos on Tuesday, Kinew...
Democrat Emily Gregory won a special election for a Florida state House seat on Tuesday, flipping a district that is home to President Donald Trump's estate, Mar-a-Lago. The Republican president endorsed Gregory's rival, Jon Maples. In a social media post Monday, he urged voters to turn out, saying Maples was endorsed "by so many of my Palm Beach County friends."...
India would like to create a trusted traveller program with Ottawa that could ease access to Canada for Indian businesspeople similar to the NEXUS program for Canadians and Americans, New Delhi’s top envoy says. Dinesh Patnaik, India’s high commissioner to Canada, said such an arrangement could be part of the deepening ties between the two countries that follow from Prime...
President Donald Trump took to social media Saturday to celebrate the death of Robert Mueller, the former FBI director who famously led the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.
Canada’s renewed embrace of industrial policy and megaprojects signals a decisive shift toward an activist ‘nation-of‑builders’ strategy. However, a real test of its success is whether it can support lasting, community‑led prosperity in regions that depend on natural resource extraction or energy generation.
Canada’s housing shortage is no longer just an affordability problem. It is increasingly a constraint on economic growth, labour mobility, and the ability of cities to function effectively. Despite record levels of construction employment and investment, housing supply continues to fall far short of what Canadians need. The core problem lies in a sustained decline in residential construction productivity. Employment...
A collection of SubStack publishing within Canadian public affairs.
Canadian troops may be only days away from deploying to the Middle East to aid the U.S.’s and Israel’s war on Iran. The latest indication is a joint statement expressing concern about Iran’s restriction of oil tankers through the narrow Strait of Hormuz signed by Prime Minister Mark Carney and NATO allies late in the week.
Canadians who have neglected to pay their taxes to the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) have been coming forward in droves to take advantage of new amnesty rules.
Ontario Premier Doug Ford’s spurious excuses for gutting the province’s freedom-of-information (FOI) law are exactly why we need transparency legislation in the first place: governments are habitual liars. Last week, the Ford government said it plans to weaken its sunshine law by erecting brick walls around every minister’s office, including the premier’s. Freedom-of-information requests will no longer be accepted. The...
At Issue this week: The benefits, and challenges, of Canada finally meeting its two per cent NATO spending target. The uphill political battle facing the next NDP Leader. And, the growing provincial divide over how judges are appointed in Canada.
The most predictive indicator of most leadership races is money. And in the NDP leadership race, Avi Lewis has raised the most of it — by far. Does that make him the favourite to win the NDP crown on Sunday? This week on The Numbers, before we both jet off to Winnipeg, we set our expectations for how the vote...
Newly declassified documents reveal the extraordinary depth and reach the Canadian government took to spy on Indigenous leaders in the ‘60s and ‘70s. This new reporting is the result of a years-long effort by CBC Indigenous and CBC Investigates. Today we hear how the RCMP infiltrated and sought to disrupt legitimate political Indigenous organizations, in an extensive program of covert...
It's a war between Israel, the US and Iran...but how did Lebanon get dragged into it? Its militia group, Hezbollah, is a loyal proxy of the Iranian regime, placing tens of millions of Lebanese citizens at risk in the name of loyalty to its top financier and ally. More than 1000 people have been killed, and more than a million...
